The fate of the Draft Lottery is one of the many unanswered questions currently facing the National Hockey League.
In fact, in the opinion of this award-winning anonymous blogger, it’s the most important question.
Okay, definitely not but it would be nice to know.
With each passing day, it’s becoming increasingly clear that the NHL is committed to resuming this season. Not next month but it’s entirely reasonable that we could be watching strange empty-rink playoff games in the month of June or July.
Having watched four hours worth of a virtual NFL draft last night, I’ll take sports any way I can get them.
While there are legitimate concerns associated with such an approach, the league seems pretty committed to it. And while most of the conversations are being labelled preliminary, it’s clear by the increased chatter among hockey insiders, that this is an idea that is picking up steam.
But what remains a bit of a mystery is both the approach to the Draft Lottery and the timing/format of the Draft itself.
Earlier this week, Pierre LeBrun gave us some initial speculation on the lottery, stating that it was the league’s intention to use points percentage to determine the standings.
Great start for the Ottawa Senators.
If that is indeed the route they choose, that loss to the Los Angeles Kings on the eve of the lockdown could end up being one of the biggest in franchise history. Although because they want to resume regular season play, standings can obviously still change.
Today, we learned a little bit more about the lottery ideas being tossed around by the league, this time from a Mr. Bob McKenzie.
Outside of just handing the Senators the top two picks because damn it, we deserve them, this is probably best case scenario for Ottawa.
Now you all know I don’t DO math (even at a Grade 1 level, as I’ve learned over the last month) but it sounds like the new percentages would break down something like this.
-Picks 1 and 3- 25%
-Picks 2 and 3- 43.5%
-Picks 2 and 4- 7.5%
-Picks 3 and 4: 25%
Yea, I’d take that.
Now they could tinker with the percentages (or overhaul them by including every team?) just to mess with us but just about every Sens fan would take a scenario like this. That early-June timing works for me too by the way because my schedule is WIIIIIIDE open.
You can listen to McKenzie’s comments here.
As you can tell by the way these ideas are being discussed, still quite preliminary.
Works for me, Gary.
